EU's "Laboratory" in the Western Balkans. Experimenting Europeanization without Democratization. The Case of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

The article will explore some potential causes of this limited process of Europeanization and its overallimpact on the malfunctioning of Bosnia. After a short conceptual overview inside the Europeanizationliterature and its connection with democratization, the analytical section of the article will focus on theparticular case of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The main question to be tackled is: How democraticis the Europeanization process in Bosnia and who should be held accountable for the outcome afteralmost two decades-long effort? The subsequent analysis will try to bring a potential answer to thisconcern, using the intricate case of the Europeanization of BiH as an illustration for the ambivalent roleof the EU in the Western Balkans (WB) with the scope of pointing out some lessons which were notfully drawn from this process. The main conclusion is that the mixed strategy of EU that induced bothexternal pressure and local ownership under the EU conditionality created institutional blockage and ademocratic deficit